“Da,” she said again. She understood this kind of conversation, pistol and all.
“Take me to your computer.”
She led him down the dark hallway to the study, not making an effort to hold down the natural sway of her hips.
“Where is Evgeny?” the American criminal Strigoi asked from behind her.
“He is upstairs. Drunk. He will not awaken,” she said.
In the study he pushed her towards Evgeny’s massive, oaken desk.
“Log me in,” he said, and she sat, booting up the computer. She checked to see if he was looking at her tits, revealed through the opening in her robe. He wasn’t.
“There’s a security system on my house. I’ll give you the entry code and the combination for the safe in my bedroom,” he said. “Fifty thousand American inside, about the same in rubles and euros. You can have that and anything else you want. I won’t be coming back.”
She looked at him, her eyes wide and blue. “I thought you were Strigoi tonight, come to take my warmth. Instead you are a friend come to give me a way out of here.”
“Get up,” he said, gesturing with the pistol. She moved aside and he crouched in front of the computer, rapidly opening up an email program.
He typed a quick note.
HI CAT,
HEADBAND
LOVE YOU,
LEWIS
“Who is Cat?” Zoya asked. She could read English well enough.
The Strigoi American criminal neighbor sent the email and closed down the program. “I need a coat and boots. Hat. You do too. I’m taking the car, and you’re coming with me. I’ll drop you off a few minutes away from here. Whether you tell Evgeny about the safe or not is up to you.”
“I will not tell him.”
The melting man looked her over and nodded. “What will you say about the car?”
“I tell him Strigoi come and take it,” Zoya said in English. She had no intention of ever having to tell that fat pig Evgeny anything ever again.
Lewis stood and aimed the pistol at her heart and the fear filled Zoya once more.
- 2 -
Lewis sat in the passenger seat, warm in a long, black overcoat and Russian hat. He completed the ensemble with a thin pair of black leather gloves and insulated boots, thankful for Evgeny’s expensive taste in clothing.
He held the Makarov on Zoya the entire time as she carefully piloted the Mercedes sedan through the storm. Twice she slid and the heavy car glanced off the six-foot snowbanks lining the road.
“Sorry,” Zoya said. Lewis made no comment, but the gun never wavered.
Far from a hindrance, the promise of money transformed Zoya into a quick-thinking partner as she had loaded the trunk with unasked-for items such as snowshoes, fresh water and dried sausages. A thermos full of hot coffee rested on the seat beside him. Evgeny’s mistress had a mercenary’s instinct for scenting new opportunity, and the winds of change were blowing.
“Stop here,” he said. She nodded and pulled the vehicle to the side of the road.
“Stick to the road and you’ll be at my house in no time,” Lewis said. “Keys to my car are in my desk drawer.”
“Spaseeba,” she said, her voice low, buttoning her coat and pulling on a pair of gloves. She opened the door and a skirl of wind carried snowflakes inside. “Good luck, Strigoi.”
“Go,” Lewis said.
She closed the door without another word, and then he was alone in the warm car, listening to the hiss of air from the heaters and the comforting rumble of the engine. It was a good car with all-weather tires and a full tank of gas.
I hope you check your email, Cat, Lewis thought. He fought down a wave of panic. He still had no idea what was going on, but he sensed that he needed speed more than information at the moment. He could only control what he could control. Right now, that meant not making obvious choices. St. Petersburg air and rail facilities could be watched. He had to make a decision.
Cat is smart. She and Hedde will be all right.
“I’m coming, baby,” he said.
He was two hundred miles from Finland. Finland gave him options.
Lewis decided.
CHAPTER FIVE
- 1 -
“You have a great ass,” Jim slurred, and Cat had to bite back a scream before she made it into the bathroom and slapped at the light switch, missing it twice before the row of bulbs over the mirror blinded her and she flinched back.
The feeling had swept over her like a tidal wave while Jim was fucking her, pressing her face first into the mattress in a way that had once seemed violently sexy but was now smothering; the slap of his pelvis against her buttocks not raunchy but laughable.
“Come for me, baby,” he kept whispering in her ear, and it was all she could do to fake it, consumed with the idea that the asshole fucking her still hadn’t figured out she wouldn’t orgasm when he came at her from behind.
She was so incredibly sad.
She braced her palms on the sink and looked at herself, not surprised to see the wet gleam of her eyes beneath a mess of dark hair. She looked haunted and feral, like something out of Dickens, if Dickens had written about cheating wives.
“God…”
The sordid tackiness of the affair had once been both shield and sword against her loneliness. An anger-fed solution to the increasing distance between Lew and herself. A counter to the growing conviction that he was leaving her, had already left her, was in love with another woman. She hadn’t seen Jim since before Lew’s last trip home. Had told Jim that it was over, a fling. “Let’s be grown-ups and enjoy it for what it was,” she had said back then, a model of suburban sophistication.
“I knew you’d call again,” Jim had told her when she dialed his number from memory after Lew’s last call. Distracted Lew. Not listening Lew.
She ran the water and wetted a tissue to wipe herself clean, forcing herself to watch the inelegant task in the mirror. Her nipples were hurting and she looked in his medicine cabinet for some sort of skin cream, but couldn’t find anything besides a bottle of men’s hair color and Tylenol.
Jim had picked up where they left off, but from the first moment when he peeled up her shirt, it was all wrong. The sight and smell of him, the taste of his cock, the hand smacking her ass, dirty fun that turned out to be just dirt. She felt like a kid who had been playing in the dark only to have the lights switched on and discover she was in a dumpster. Everything about the aftermath of their sex was awful. The reek of his cologne, the red skin of her inner thighs where his rough beard hurt her, the stale beer and cigarette taste of his tongue.
Cat doubled over and wretched up a thin stream of tequila-flavored bile into the sink, cupping her hand to lift water to her mouth.
“Quite a life you’ve carved out for yourself, Cat,” she said to her naked reflection and did the best she could to record every detail about the single unhappiest moment in her life.
Green fingers of mold crawled up the corners of his coffin-like shower stall and Cat decided she could wait until she got home to wash away his stink, even if she had to drive with the window down.
- 2 -
The strains of “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” blended with the hiss of air through her open window as she piloted the Jeep Cherokee towards home. She’d stabbed the radio buttons at random, unable to handle the silence or her usual NPR talk radio. She needed something to keep her tethered, afraid of the incredible numbness spreading throughout her mind. The idea that her marriage had likely drifted beyond the point of no return was too enormous, too terrifying to face head on.
There was no single, catastrophic event that came to mind as having set the course towards where she found herself. It was, instead, a series of small decisions and minor cowardices—death by a thousand cuts. The loneliness when Lew started working overseas again. Hedde entering high school, throwing up walls where there had once been open roads between mother and daughter. The decision to work as a consultant from home instead of having the
companionship of an office. Isolation had bred not a desire for contact, but a need to turn even further inward.
She looked up and realized she had no idea how long she had been parked in the strip mall. No recollection of pulling over. It was no coincidence that she had parked in front of a liquor store. Day drinking was a new event in her life, but every small, burning sip screamed a warning at her that she had chosen to ignore.
“I don’t want it to be over.”
The voice wasn’t hers. Couldn’t be hers. It reminded her of Hedde when she was younger, when she still let them hold her hand, when she still talked to them. Them. Cat and Lew. God, she remembered how cool she thought they sounded the first time she’d heard someone else describe them as a couple. The thing is, they had been cool. They had been fun. It wasn’t fake. It was real. Had been real.
“I don’t like this.” That same small voice.
A sudden, barking sob burst from her and she wiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands, smearing dark eyeliner, not caring. She threw the Jeep into reverse and nearly backed into a compact car entering the lot, ignoring the irate honk of the horn as she peeled out of the parking lot.
Her phone beeped to let her know there was an incoming message, but she didn’t feel solid enough behind the wheel to check it and had zero interest in being hounded about copy deadlines. What was it her friend had said? There is a fuck I cannot give. She pulled into a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru for a necessary cup of coffee and had forgotten about the unread email by the time she pulled into the A&P to pick up groceries for dinner.
- 3 -
HEADBAND.
White light flooded across her vision and a rushing noise filled her ears as the phone tumbled from Cat’s grasp.
For a moment, everything ceased.
She gradually became aware of the wetness soaking into the seat of her jeans and found herself sitting on the linoleum floor of her kitchen in a puddle of orange juice, the gloaming of the room relieved by the strident white light of the open refrigerator and the blue glow of her phone.
“No, no, no, no, no, no…”
She pawed amidst the sticky shards of the broken juice bottle and scooped up the dripping phone, noting the jagged lightning bolt that had ripped across the screen, convinced that it was broken, that she had hallucinated, hoping desperately, oh please, that she had not seen the word.
HEADBAND.
A hum arose from the refrigerator and a gust of cool air struck her as the machine struggled to maintain temperature. Cat glanced at her hand and plucked a sliver of glass from the meat below her thumb, absently sucking on it. She tasted like orange juice and copper pennies.
Slowly she rose and began collecting broken glass. She pursed her lips, wondering if she had another pair of clean jeans or if she would need to dig through the laundry.
HEADBAND.
A sound was building inside her, a sound that terrified her. She could feel it swirling, a tornado she was afraid to let out. If she gave in to that sound, she might never stop.
She broke down the key letters from the word Lewis had made her memorize. He had smiled when he told her, but he had been annoyingly persistent until she had played along. A bored Lewis Edgar was a noisy Lewis Edgar, and she was used to his need for minor amusements.
“Okay,” she had finally said. “BAND is for bank.” She had stolen the bowl of popcorn back from him.
“Hey,” he said, grabbing another handful. “Give me the location and box number,” he continued through a mouthful.
“Just write it down—”
He waved her quiet. “Never write this down anywhere.”
Cat had seen that quick tightness in his jaw and gave in, reciting back the information.
“What’s first?”
“Get Hedde,” she said. “This isn’t much of a code. It might even be a terrible code.”
“Doesn’t need to hold up under scrutiny for any length, but does need to be easy to remember no matter what the situation.”
She forced a too-big handful of popcorn in her mouth and chewed as if it were perfectly normal, despite looking like a chipmunk.
“C’mon, Cat.” She couldn’t resist his earnest expression.
“Okay, okay,” she said, swallowing between okays. “Needy bastard.”
“You’ve grabbed Hedde and hit the bank. Now what?
“But you can’t stand Uncle Gerard.”
“It’s a good place to go,” Lewis said, rising from the couch. She liked the strong line of his shoulder and still thought he had a nice butt, even if he complained that he was out of shape.
“You have to be serious here for a sec, Cat.”
“Okay. I mean, I am.”
“If you hear this word on the phone, if you get an email from me with this word, just do it, okay? Don’t wait around, just follow protocol until I can get in touch with you.”
His tone had annoyed her, although a more honest answer might be that he had frightened her. “It’s a little 007, don’t you think?”
He had stopped what he called the “skulking stuff” when they got married, became “just another office guy.” When she pressed him, he told her his job was something like a cross between an ambassador and a Hollywood agent, one of those people that puts together a package of actors and money with a script before a movie gets made. Whenever she tried to dig into his time before her, asked if he’d ever done some movie-worthy undercover stuff, he’d say, “Nope.” Lying to her, knowing she knew but not budging an inch.
“HEADBAND,” she said, “is stupid.”
He smiled. “I know. Just humor me, okay?”
“Okay. If I get the word, I’ll drop everything and follow protocol.”
Drop everything, that’s a laugh. She was cleaning up orange juice from the floor.
“Oh God,” she said, dropping the sopping paper towels with a splat. She ran to the counter and grabbed her shoulder bag and keys, then stopped. A terrible feeling gripped her. A penetrating fear that invaded the sunlit safety of her kitchen. Her family’s kitchen.
Something was really happening.
She grabbed the plastic container full of cat food and tore it off, setting the entire thing on the floor for Mozart.
Hedde.
She grabbed her coat and banged out through the storm door, following the path the neighbor kid had shoveled to get to the car. The Jeep Cherokee had four-wheel drive, one of those things Lew had insisted on.
Get Hedde, then the bank.
She yanked open the driver’s side door and stopped, looking around. The afternoon sun reflected blindingly off the white snow covering every rooftop and lawn on the block. Melting icicles hung from eves, refracting light in a kaleidoscope of colors. Billy Pelletier was building a snowman in his front yard. He waved and shouted something at her that she couldn’t quite make out.
How can something bad be happening now? she thought. It’s not even that cold out.
She pulled herself up into the Jeep and pulled the door shut, keying the ignition. The dashboard clock read 2:15 p.m.
If I don’t get there soon, Hedde will disappear until supper time.
Cat twisted in the seat and backed carefully down the driveway. There were a lot of little kids like Billy Pelletier on their block, and you could never tell when they’d be right behind you.
In the street she stopped, both hands on the wheel. She was shaking. HEADBAND. She thought she was about to cry and shifted into DRIVE.
Lew, where are you?
CHAPTER SIX
- 1 -
They thought she was gay. They thought she did drugs. They thought she was “Most Likely to Become a Serial Killer.” The fact that the other kids were wrong about everything provided no relief from their contempt, the weight of which Hedde carried with shoulders hunched up to her ears, arms held down straight at her sides as if pushing off the earth.
Okay, she occasionally considered becoming a serial killer, but it probably wasn’t in the cards.
&n
bsp; She favored long skirts so out of fashion they belonged in yellowed photographs, and wool sweaters, always heavy, always gray, though she varied between pullovers and cardigans. Her boots were scavenged from vintage stores where she paid boutique prices for drab leather, and she cut her own hair when it grew too long. A snip in the front and black hair hit the sink to reveal her eyes. Two or three snips across the back to keep it from falling past her shoulder blades.
They called her Wednesday Addams and Lizzie Borden but lacked the rhyming ability to do much with either. She called them morons and counted them even.
“Did you bring it?” Hedde asked as the circle of girls in the smoking area parted and reformed around her, placing her at the center of the listing gazebo, with its peeling paint and graffiti scars. She saw the glitter of hate in their eyes and scowled back at them from beneath her jagged bangs. She knew the smokers by sight, but today there were new faces in the crowd. Susie Chambers who drew a fucking heart over the i in her name. The Abercrombie & Fitch set walking on the wild side.
“Here it is,” Sorsha said, pulling a plastic sandwich baggie from the pocket of her green army coat.
“The money,” Hedde said.
“Oh, here.”
Sorsha pulled a crumpled twenty from her jeans pocket and Hedde snatched it from her hand, making it vanish.
“Okay,” Hedde said and took the baggie with its disgusting, sticky mess inside. She produced a pencil from her book bag then let the bag slip from her shoulder to crash on the ground. Feet shifted around her and she realized they were nervous.
“You know if you used these all the time you wouldn’t be in this jam,” Hedde said.
“C’mon,” Sorsha pleaded.
Susie-with-a-heart whispered something about not being such a slut and Sorsha’s face went beet red.
Hedde knelt on the ground and fished the messy condom from the bag with the tip of her pencil, grimacing at the stale bleach stink of it.
Mister White: The Novel Page 4
